A Slow and Sensitive Approach by the U.S. in Pakistan Is Best

Oct. 11 marked the United Nations' first International Day of the Girl Child, and the horrific attack on Malala Yusafzai highlights all too vividly that protecting the rights of girls remains as vitally important as ever. As the director of Save the Children in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, I learned through experience that protecting women’s rights in these areas is both possible and important. Despite severe restrictions imposed by the Taliban, humanitarian organizations continued to implement programs benefiting women and men throughout the country. More important, many brave Afghan women and men took great risks to defend women’s rights, including teaching girls in secret home schools, despite the ban on girls’ education.

Those working for women's rights in Taliban-heavy areas best understand how to operate in culturally sensitive ways while also recognizing that there are no "quick fixes."

It is the courageous men and women working in Taliban-influenced parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan, including brave girls like Malala, who are currently leading the fight for women’s rights in their own areas. They understand best how to operate in culturally sensitive ways, and recognize there are no “quick fixes” to changing cultural beliefs and practices.

Afghanistan in particular provides many tragic examples of well-intentioned efforts to push modernization agendas rapidly and at times forcefully, including girls’ education. Oftentimes these projects have provoked violent reactions in conservative rural areas, which ultimately set back reform efforts. But attitudes are changing gradually, and now the biggest impediment to girls’ education in culturally conservative parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan is not lack of demand, or violent attacks by the Taliban, but the capacity of the states in both countries to supply it.

In Pakistan, where anti-American sentiment is at an all-time high, it is especially important that efforts to support women’s rights be seen as nationally defined and led rather than internationally driven by external donors. The near universal outcry within Pakistan against the attack on Malala is a silver lining and should make extremely clear to the Pakistani state that it, and not foreign donors -- or 14-year old girls -- should be leading the fight to protect and promote the educational rights of Pakistani girls and boys, as enshrined in Pakistan’s constitution.